Amazon Workplace Landing page
Redesigning the landing experience of Amazon Workplace for users to get a 360º view of their workplace for efficient planning of work from office days.
THE CHALLENGE
At this point, Amazon Workplace as a product offered users the ability to reserve a seat for them on the days they planned to work from office. As offices started opening back up and talks about hybrid work model started happening, the existing feature was not enough to keep the product afloat. One of the biggest problems that it faced at this point was USAGE which had dropped from 72% in May 2021 to 34% in October 2022. This was one of the first signs that Amazon Workplace was a temporary solution to a temporary problem.
Below is illustrated the legacy Amazon Workplace landing page which is a calendar the purpose of which was to indicate days employees made a seat reservation to work from office.
THE SOLUTION
Redesigning the landing experience for users to offer an end to end, optimized work from office experience - from deciding which days they want to be in office, creating a work from office booking / inviting colleagues for group work from office plans to making the most of their experience in office. This would help elevate the existing Amazon Workplace experience that only partially addresses the work from office experience - creating a personal work from office booking. It would also ensure the product stays revelant and usable in the hybrid work era of Amazon.
SUCCESS METRICS: Adoption rate, User satisfaction
RESEARCH
A set of 10 users from across the global Amazon workforce agreed to have a one on one interview to provide their thoughts and feedback on their existing experience with Amazon workplace platform. The goal was to understand the following
How often they use Amazon workplace
How do they anticipate their usage of the platform changing as hybrid work model is adopted by Amazon
In an ideal world, what would a perfect workplace product feel like to them? How would it help them more than it is now?
Overall, through this exercise I was able to uncover the following insights:
A lot of wasted space with the calendar taking up the entire page
No element of collaboration with colleagues or notification of bookings (new booking, cancellation)
A reactive approach - an entire product dedicated to only the result of a user initiated workflow
Irrelevant once hybrid work model comes into play
PERSONA
I used the findings to create a persona of an Amazon Workplace user. Although Amazon has hundreds of thousands of employees working in numerous roles, the findings suggested that they more or less needed a very similar goal achieved in their usage of Amazon Workplace - a holistic view of their in-office work to better plan their in-office days.
The challenge was to figure out how this new landing page would show varying key metrics to users based on what is relevant for them in their role. It was clear that some level of customization would be required.
KEY FEATURES
I shared the findings with the stakeholders and collaborated with the product manager to identify the key features / data points that users would like to see on their landing view. These key features were then discussed with engineering team & mapped across an impact effort matrix to understand the effort and therefore the timeline thereby helping us define progressive versions of landing page.
Post this exercise, given the amount of information that would go on the landing view, I proceeded to work on putting together a few design concepts that showcased variations of the view and subject the concepts to A/B usability tests to further understand and validate users’ needs & expectations.
IDEATION & LO-FI WIREFRAMES
I finalized two layouts that I wanted to test with the users and get feedback on the experience.
The goal behind this exercise was to understand how the different key elements would sit on the landing page. The factors I had to keep in mind included:
Avoid information overload / cognitive overload
Define hierarchy visually so user knows what to focus on without fishing for information
DESIGN CONCEPTS & A/B TESTING
With two base layouts, I worked on creating 3 mid-fidelity design concepts that I wanted to then subject to A/B usability testing with 8 users across 3 time zones to not just further validate the key themes established through research but to also identify any further areas of opportunity that may have been missed.
Concept 1
The first section of the page showcases stats related to user’s and their network’s WFO bookings along with summary data of WFO booking trends for their home office. The top placement emphasizes these data points.
Second section showcases the calendar with today’s date selected by default. Dates with individual or colleagues’ bookings are marked in respective icons. The right subsection shows details of the day - whether the user and or other colleagues with shared calendar have a WFO booking. Could be used to showcase more information such as events happening in the workplace on that day.
Third section showcases updates - recent articles from various sources related to workplace with links to read full article.
The fourth section shows quick links related to AWP that user might need to access.
WHAT WORKED
Very refreshing & informative
The condensed calendar gives space for a lot of other relevant info
Great to see who has plans to WFO without numerous clicks
Like the trends showcased at the top
WHAT DIDN’T
Too many blocks of information - not overwhelming but feel like work to go through
Colleagues with WFO plans section is too much - I don’t collaborate with anyone so that’ll always be an empty view for me.
The customization aspect is not really clear
Focus on the calendar is lost.
An entire section for blog style updates is repetitive
Concept 2
Concept 2 consisted of three primary sections - first is the calendar with a more prominent space on the page with today’s date selected and details of the day showing up in the section underneath.
First half of the second section shows quick links related to AWP that user might need to access.
Third section showcases updates - recent articles from various sources related to workplace with links to read full article.
WHAT WORKED
Looks clean and modern
Love that the calendar is still the highlight - I instantly know what to focus on and where to click for new bookings
Prefer this grid style layout of important data points. Shows important data points without a lot of digging around.
WHAT DIDN’T
Would prefer to see something more meaningful than quick links - won’t use it as much
An overall trend would be useful to see
Getting the same updates in emails and reading them here again is not useful
Would like to see smaller date windows - don’t always plan 4 week in advance.
Concept 3
Concept 3 consisted of two primary sections - first is the calendar with a more prominent space on the page with today’s date selected and details of the day showing up in the section underneath - similar to concept 2.
Second section allows user to switch between latest updates - articles, events etc. that they might need to be aware of from a workplace standpoint.
Quick links section in this case is integrated in the menu under ‘?’
WHAT DIDN’T
I only focus on team building events - would like to be able to filter them from others.
Highlighting days with team meetings, town halls, one on ones would be helpful in WFO planning
WHAT WORKED
Events are a big hit
Knowing which events are happening on what day is helpful to decide when to go to office. Like the ability to switch to blog style updates, if there’s a new one.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Separating global settings & landing view settings to make it easy for users to find & update the latter more easily & quickly.
Allowing users to choose smaller date windows to lessen their cognitive load.
Using progressive disclosure to show overall trend and date specific details.
Introducing filtering to allow users to filter event type.
FINAL DESIGN - POST FEEDBACK
DESIGN GUIDE
FONT: Amazon Ember
CONSTRAINTS & LEARNINGS
One of the biggest challenges that I encountered as part of this project was that I was working with ambiguous requirements that evolved as I spoke to users, stakeholders and tested design concepts. This project started as an exploration of where Amazon Workplace as a product could go and how it had the potential to evolve into an efficient work planning tool for employees. The user feedback and findings served as a powerful tool to confirm why a landing page redesign was the next big step that needed to be taken to help Amazon Workplace with adoption and usage. None of this would have been possible with collaborative efforts of design, product and engineering.
Despite the ambiguities, the biggest challenge of the product was also the biggest blessing because as a designer I had a blank canvas to be customer obsessed and propose an experience that is in the best interest of the users.